The Wrestling Guys

The official Blog for The Wrestling Guys Radio Show and www.thewrestlingguys.com. Listen to The Wrestling Guys Radio Show every Wednesday at 6:05pm on 910 WPFB-AM.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Notes and stuff for Tuesday

Vince McMahon missed Raw Monday due to having surgery performed last week. The surgery requires a travel restriction, so he couldn't fly to the show last night. According to Dave Scherer, he ran the show by telephone from home while all hell broke loose backstage. The script for the show wasn't available to the wrestlers, as the writing team was still working to complete it two hours before it started.

Lex Luger was backstage at the Universal tapings for TNA this week. This hasn't been a popular move with the locker room.

Friday, October 08, 2004

Indy thoughts, Ratings, UFC and more

Les Thatcher has a great column on the problems facing indy promotions at PWInsider.com

Smackdown had a 3.4 final rating last night - it's best showing in quite a while. That will almost certainly be well received by WWE management. The rating was surprising given the 3.8 overnight, which would usually put the show back in the usual low 3, high 2 range that it had been in.

This is something I remember reporting on about two years ago. Fox Sports Net has announceda new deal with UFC for four one-hour specials. It's about time. The first will air Oct. 17.

Sorry for my lack of posting lately. As you know, this is high school football season and fall sports season as well, and I wouldn't have a full week if I didn't have the flu or something.

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Radio Show Preview for 9/29

Tonight on The Wrestling Guys Radio Show, Samoa Joe makes his return to the program as we get ready for the return of ROH to Dayton. Plus we'll discuss the Kane segment from this past Monday and if it was disrespectful to Owen Hart. All that plus your phone calls starting at 6:05pm on 910 WPFB-AM.

Monday, September 27, 2004

Sunday, September 26, 2004

This, to me, might be the best DVD WWE has ever offered. I can't understand why it isn't getting the same hype that the Flair and Benoit DVDs received.

The Mysterio match at Havoc in '97 may be the best match of his career. Some consider it to be the greatest WCW cruiserweight match ever and almost everyone rated it at 5 stars. The only reason this bout wasn't match of the year was because it was the same month that Undertaker and Michaels wrestled in the first Hell in the Cell match, which happened to be the debut of Kane and also coincided with the death of Brian Pillman. Once all of the Survivor Series crap happened the next month, the Cruiserweight match was long forgotten due to the other muck. It's a shame, because WCW at the time had a lot of great stuff happening. The Horsemen reunion, the Cruiserweight division was on fire and Chris Jericho was just months away from turning heel and putting out the best work of his career and the best heel work anyone has seen since.

The When World's Collide PPV is a forgotten treasure. For a lot of people, it was their introduction to Lucha Libre. Guerrero and Art Barr are considered by some to be the greatest heel tag team of all time. Even though Barr died in the mid-90's and the team disbanded, Guerrero would, years later, still get heel heat in L.A. and San Diego wrestling for WCW while working as a babyface with the U.S. title.

The Guerrero/RVD ladder match was a terrific main event match, despite the worst fan interference in the history of the Monday night era. It was the peak of Rob Van Dam's run in WWE and marked the last time anything on Raw in the main event was remotely watchable until Benoit's huge push.

The Chavo/Eddie hair match is a hidden classic and showed how inept WCW management was at the time. They pushed the angle as Eddie being the classic bully, but Chavo losing his mind provided a great twist. Both men got over and it all culminated in their PPV match, which is another forgotten classic. Chavo Guerrero Jr. has always been a vastly underrated performer.

The ECW matches with Malenko introduced a lot of people to the Japanese style of junior heavyweights that had been showcased in the J-Cup. The feud was considered to be the best of the year in 1995. WCW and the WWF immediately got into a bidding war for both of their services. WCW won and immediately started putting the duo in the ring together after they debuted in late '95. The feud completely reinvigorated the way matches were performed and proved the Japanese and Mexican encyclopedia of wrestling moves could get over in the U.S. It completely changed what was expected of wrestlers in the ring.

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Ray Traylor....

I should probably be surprised by the death of Ray Traylor, but I'm not. Not because of anything I may know or have heard about Traylor, mind you. The deaths that have afflicted the wrestling business don't leave you numb, but they do leave you less prone to shock. And they leave you remembering the performer that you followed.

Traylor was an extremely effective big man. He had an intimidating presence about him and it showed during his debut for Crockett in '86. The guy was huge but he was also surprisingly mobile. He also did the one thing many big men don't do, he grew as a wrestler and as a personality.

His most memorable personna will always be the Big Bossman gimmick in the WWF. It was one of the few Vince creations that actually managed to get heat and have longevity. Outside of the Undertaker, I can't think of another wrestler who took a Vince McMahon super late 80's gimmick and was able to mold it and his own personality into an effective character for such a long time. It helped that Traylor had an actual background as a prison guard, but at the same time, other wrestlers have failed in that aspect to keep a character growing, even when it has been molded around them. Traylor managed to make a decent career out of it.

Traylor's career highlights go back to the early parts of his career. Debuting with Jim Cornette during the ultra-hot Midnight Express vs. Dusty Rhodes/Magnum T.A. feud would have been the peak for many. Perhaps my favorite moment with Traylor was his face turn as the Big Bossman in the WWF. Vince has always shied from doing sudden babyface turns, especially in the last couple years. The angle was a part of the Ted DiBiase/Jake Roberts feud and took place on Superstars and was one of the few moments of someone actually switching on weekend television and not on SNME or a PPV. The switch worked like a charm and got Traylor instantly over as a good guy. He stayed one until he left the fed a couple years later.

If there is one thing I wish would happen out of this, it's that WWE would quit pushing death in such a sensational manner. Hopefully the fact another person from this business has passed on during the same week as the wretched Kane/Lita angle will be a wake up call. If wrestling companies want to use death as a plot device, they need to do it with the seriousness it deserves. Leave the black humor and the ratings whoring out of it.